Lovell Theater has wedding dress from Original…

Geena Davis may not appear in the long-awaited sequel to the 1988 comedy Beetlejuice, but her spirit will be there (so to speak) for moviegoers in Lovell, Wyoming.

The historic Hyart Theater is showing “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” this weekend, and to mark the occasion, it will be displaying the famous white dress that Davis wore in the original film that has become a cult classic.

“We have a local resident here in Lovell, Stacy Bair, and she’s kind of a movie buff,” Linda Mangus, manager of the Hyart Theater, told Cowboy State Daily. “When she heard we were screening the movie ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,’ she actually reached out to us to see if we wanted to show the dress.”

The dress will be on display during the screening of “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” this opening weekend, then it will be returned to its owner.

“Tickets for the film are available on a first come, first served basis,” Mangus added. There is no pre-sale.

The theater, known for its large 40-by-20-foot curved screen, seats approximately 735 people.

Prop collector

Movie costumes are one of Bair’s specialties, although she also sometimes buys props.

She owns around 80 costumes, including the “Beetlejuice” dress, which she bought at an auction in London when the accompanying tuxedo was also sold. The latter went to the MGM Grand in Vegas.

“There used to be a few different companies that dealt in movie props,” Bair told Cowboy State Daily. “But it somehow narrowed down to a larger company called Prop Store. And there are usually two auctions a year – one in California and the other in London.”

In 2011, Bair came across film prop auctions quite by chance.

“My family is a big fan of Halloween and I was trying to find a specific costume,” she said. “And just looking for this costume, I came across this world of movie props.”

Bair is a huge film fanatic, so she was immediately intrigued and couldn’t resist buying something.

This something was one of the costumes worn by the Necromonger troops in the Vin Diesel film Chronicles of Riddick.

“I’ve been slowly collecting props since then and have learned a lot about what is more collectible and what isn’t and the different types of movie props,” she said. “Since then, I have collected the actual Riddick costume as well as two other Necromongers. One is a captain, so he has a cape, and now I have four parts from this film.”

She narrowly missed getting Dame Vaako’s dress, a brown, scaly dress that looked somewhat reptilian in the film, complemented by a snake-like, metallic spine running down the back of the dress. Bair has a sample of the material the dress was made from.

Each costume is displayed on a mannequin, all stored in a prop-filled room she affectionately calls her museum.

An insight into the world of film memorabilia

The world of movie costumes is an interesting one, with its own protocols to learn, much like the rules of the afterlife that Davis and co-star Alec Baldwin must navigate in the original “Beetlejuice” when they learn they’re dead.

“A lot of times the actors do business,” Bair said. “Part of their contract to produce the film is some costumes and film props. So with a lot of high-end stuff, it’s kind of predetermined where it’s going to go. If you look at it, some of these actors, when they die, will often have the more valuable movie props at their estate sales.”

Bair doesn’t have time to deal with estate sales and follow the film scene so closely, she said, but she loves being involved in the film world in this small way. Especially since it gives her the opportunity to support her local cinema.

Bair always brings things to display at the Hyart depending on what films are being shown.

“I just watch to see what movies are coming because the Hyart is popular with our entire community,” Bair said. “So we kind of know what movies are coming, and if there’s ever something that fits a piece I have, I report it to them.”

Renee Jean available at [email protected].